Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his statements about the Collins-Lieberman legislation and also thank him for the amendment. This looks to be exactly like the legislation the Senator and Senator Akaka introduced, which came out of our committee. This is the right moment, and it strengthens the bill. I thank him for his persistence in offering it. I am glad we added it. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise first to thank the Senator from Tennessee for taking the time to come to the Senate floor to express his thoughts, which he has talked to Senator Collins and me about earlier. I admire his focus on this area as well as the work and focus of the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich. The fact is that this is one of those aspects of governmental process and procedure that never gets much public attention but has great consequences for the public, and in this case it is relevant to the underlying bill for national security. There is not much political plus in making this a matter one focuses on in the sense that it does not get headlines, but it is a critically important matter because, as the Senator says so well and eloquently, the delay caused in confirming the nominees has an effect on the quality of public service, in fact has an effect on the content of national security if people cannot be put into the positions where they are needed early enough. So I thank the Senator. I encourage the Senator--although I probably do not have to--to stay aggressive, to make sure that not only the amendment the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from Ohio sponsored yesterday that was adopted on the bill is put into place but, more generally, to make sure we fix this. The Senator from Tennessee has some great anecdotes, too. It is pretty startling to have heard that Howard Baker, a great former Member of this body, spent more time filling out the forms, hiring people to help him fill out the forms, to be Ambassador to Japan than he was going to receive as a salary for the first year of his service. That ought not to happen. Obviously, one of the things that also does, which the Senator knows and has spoken to, is discourage people who may not have the resources to pay for that kind of consultation from going into public service where we need them. I thank my friend from Tennessee. I rise briefly to speak in support of the--Mr. President, I am going to hold this statement, which is of a timeless nature, so I can deliver it, I am sure, at any point in the day where there may be a lull. This time was devoted to Senator Byrd to offer an amendment. I did not realize he was here. I welcome him to the Chamber and look forward to hearing his statement.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, needless to say, I thank the Senator from West Virginia, whom, as does everyone in the Chamber, I greatly admire. He is a real authority on this matter, so I speak both with respect and a certain sense of humility. This recommendation that Senator Collins and I and our committee brought before the Senate rose out of reality. And the reality is that we have an intelligence community with a lot of extraordinary people and technological assets but, as the 9/11 Commission said, there is no one in charge. I repeat, it is like a football team with great players but no quarterback. In fact, some of the players, as great as they are, are playing in a different stadium than the one where the game is. The 9/11 Commission has said to us that its foremost goal, the most urgent recommendation it makes to the Congress for what to do if we want to believe that we have done everything we can to prevent a terrorist attack of the scope of 9/11 from happening in this country again, is to create--establish a strong national intelligence director, a leader where there is no leader, a quarterback where there is no quarterback. That is what Senator Collins and I have done in our proposal. A strong national director--but what is the element of strength? It is budget authority. It is the power to bring together the agencies under the director for a unity of effort, like the joint commands in our military which grew out of Goldwater-Nichols, after a period of time and a lot of opposition when they were first considered on the floor, not dissimilar to some of the opposition and anxiety that has been expressed about the national intelligence director in our time. They worked extremely well. So we have created a strong director with budget authority to formulate budgets, to receive funds, to allocate them--with justification, not wantonly; to transfer budget, transfer funds to meet an emergency; to transfer personnel to achieve a national purpose. In our deliberations in the Governmental Affairs Committee we see warning after warning that if you are going to do this right, you have to give this national intelligence director real power. In this morning's paper, the Washington Post, Friday, October 1, an article by Charles Babington quotes from a press conference I presume by the Chair and Cochair of the 9/11 Commission, Governor Kean, former Republican Governor of New Jersey, and Congressman Hamilton, former Democratic Congressman from Indiana. Governor Kean says at one point, the story says: Governor Kean meanwhile spoke sharply against House provisions and proposed Senate amendments that would limit the national intelligence director's authority over spending and personnel decisions in agencies under them. It goes on to say: The House bill will keep more of that power in the Pentagon. Then Governor Kean says: On behalf of the nonpartisan commission, this is not an area where one can compromise. If you are not going to create a strong national intelligence director with powers both appointive and over the budget, don't do it. I repeat: If you are not going to create a strong national intelligence director with powers both appointive and over the budget, don't do it. That is the advice we heard over and over again from former Directors of Central Intelligence, from experts in the field, from members of the Commission. I say respectfully that the amendment which Senator Byrd and the distinguished list of cosponsors put before us this morning would have the effect of weakening the authority of the national intelligence director and, therefore, bring us back to the place where we were, where there wasn't a strong quarterback, where there wasn't a strong general, if you will, of our intelligence forces in the war against terrorism. As I read it, it strikes the section that establishes accounts for the national intelligence program funds under the jurisdiction of the national intelligence director, and the national intelligence director would control the management, including the allotment of appropriated funds to the elements of the intelligence community. I would like to have some discussion on this. But as I read one of the two parts of this which strike me as most troubling, it is the part that seems to say that our attempt in this bill--our clear intention stated in the bill--is to make sure that strange situation we have where 80 percent of the funding for intelligence, billions and billions of dollars, goes not to the intelligence community first but to the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense is a critical--in some sense, the largest--customer of intelligence, but it is not the only customer. The President of the United States is the No. 1 customer. The Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, FBI--one could go on and on--they are also important users of intelligence. We have said that the funds of the national intelligence program budget should go to the national intelligence director and give that person the authority that comes with the money to allocate those funds throughout the agencies underneath him, and give him thereby some clout to create unity of effort, to bring people together, to overcome the weaknesses. As the 9/11 Commission Report describes it--and Senator Collins and I keep telling the story--George Tenet, former Director of Central Intelligence, in 1998, after a series of al-Qaida attacks on Americans and American targets abroad, declares war on terrorism. It was a classified document within the intelligence community and it is now public. It states the case very strongly. It says we have to devote all of our resources to it, and nothing happened. Senator Byrd is a great student of the Bible. I so appreciate it. He brought it with him to the Senate floor yesterday. I take this opportunity to quote from the Bible. Perhaps it was from Corinthians. ``If the sound of the trumpet be uncertain, who will follow into battle?'' My worry here is that in this case, the trumpet is money. If the authority of the national intelligence director over the funds is uncertain, then I worry that the troops are not going to follow them into battle just as they didn't follow George Tenet when they declared war or terrorists and terrorism in 1998. We might have even been better off and maybe even have avoided 9/11 if something had happened in response to that. This amendment seems to say that the money we want to go to the national intelligence director can't because in our attempt to establish accounts, we now, in this act of Congress--Senator Byrd is absolutely right, this is a congressional decision, but we are offering our colleagues that decision, which is to set up those accounts in the Treasury Department for the national intelligence director so that director can receive the funds and then allocate them. Second, the two elements of authority for the national intelligence director as the general of our intelligence forces are to transfer personnel and funds. I appreciate the fact that this amendment does not take away that authority, and when Senator Collins and I started out, we worried people would resist that authority altogether in the national intelligence director. So I appreciate that. But it does limit the authority of the director to transfer personnel and money in a way that I think weakens the director and undercuts the purpose we want and the reasons we want them to be powerful, to give this intelligence force the flexibility to focus, the agility to respond to realities in the world. These terrorists are not only brutal, not only inhumane, not only don't value human life, not only convince themselves zealously that they are doing God's work by killing God's children wantonly, but they are agile. They will look for weaknesses in the system and move to attack. That is why the national intelligence director has to have the ability to move money quickly. It may be that there is a crisis area somewhere or a new kind of threat to the United States and the director decides he has to move funds to meet that threat. This is not an authority that is unlimited or even beyond the control of the law today. Our bill makes sure that there is congressional oversight on the transfer of the funds. The amendment would limit the transfer of funds. It would have to be less than $100 million and less than 5 percent of the budget of the entity from which the money is being transferred unless the relevant department head concurs in the transfer. I want to assure the Chamber and Senator Byrd that our amendment, though it does not put those limits on the transfer because we don't know what kind of threat may emerge and where the national intelligence director may feel in the national interest he wants to move those funds, makes sure there is congressional oversight. It provides that any transfer of funds by the national intelligence director must be carried out in accordance with the existing congressional notification procedures. Congress still has the right to approve. Moreover, the national intelligence director is required to submit a report to the appropriate committees of Congress explaining the nature of the transfer and how it meets the relevant statutory requirements. Finally, our bill also requires that any transfer of funds or personnel not exceed applicable ceilings established in law for such. This means that while we are setting the standard for the national intelligence director, Congress each year as it adopts the budget reserves the right to put instructions in that. I might oppose it, but it includes the possibility of limiting the transfers, as has happened in the past. We wanted to make sure--in some sense to reassure ourselves and our appropriators--that this bill says that any transfer of funds or personnel would not exceed applicable ceilings established in law for such transfers. We want to provide the national intelligence director with the necessary flexibility and force to respond with speed to a crisis, and not establish, therefore, permanent caps on this legislation that might hinder the director's ability to make those changes that are necessary. Under the current system, the DCI lacks budget power. DOD controls 80 percent of the intelligence budget, whereas the director of central intelligence effectively only controls a budget of one agency, the CIA. Secretary Powell commented on this current reality at our hearing on September 13, 2004, by saying: The DCI was there before but the DCI did not have that kind of authority, and in this town it's budget authority that counts. Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton said in their testimony at our first hearing on July 30: The national intelligence director would not be like other czars who get the title but have no meaningful authority. He will control national intelligence program purse strings. For those reasons, respectfully, this amendment would seriously weaken the authority of the national intelligence director, and therefore, I believe, the director's ability to protect our national security in an age of terrorism. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, let me first thank the Senator from West Virginia for his kind words. The truth is, these are critically important matters we are debating. I feel a sense of responsibility and honor in having the opportunity to speak to them. But I must say, to be involved in a debate such as this with the Senator from West Virginia is in itself an honor. We disagree on this particular amendment, but I so respect the core of his values that motivate him and guide him every day. I know he only wishes the best for our country and for our Congress. I don't say it lightly. I hope he understands these are not reflexive words and praise. It is an honor to be involved in this kind of debate with the Senator from West Virginia, who is a very vital Member of the Senate today but a part of Senate and American history. I thank him very much for caring enough about what we are doing to come here this morning and offer this amendment. Of course, he is the man who carries the Constitution right by his heart and reminds us of what it requires of us. It is a founding document. It is in many ways a sacred document to all of us Americans. I assure him, with regard to the sections of the Constitution he read about the appropriate allocation of responsibility of the Congress and the executive branch regarding fiscal decisions, there is nothing in this bill Senator Collins and I bring to the Senate that would alter that balance in any way. I will speak to that in a bit. There is an alteration of authority and power in this proposal Senator Collins and I have made, but it is not altering the existing, constitutionally based power relationship between Congress and the executive. It does alter the allocation of authority and money and, therefore, power between various agencies of the executive branch. But there is no change in the congressional-executive relationship. Yes, there are some necessary changes in the relationship between the Department of Defense, CIA, FBI, and a new national intelligence director who gains power here. So some may have to give up a little bit, but that is in the national interest. That is the first point I want to assure the Senator on. Senator Collins and I are not only devoted to the Constitution, we are devoted to the critical role the Constitution gives Congress in these matters. I want to assure the Senator, again, that we have done nothing to alter the authority of Congress. I will read from page 28 of our bill, section (4). This is the section that goes to the transfer authority of the national intelligence director. On line 23, it reads: Any transfer of funds under this subsection shall be carried out in accordance with existing procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications for the appropriate congressional committees. Then it goes on: The National Intelligence Director shall promptly submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on any transfer of personnel made pursuant to this subsection. Of course, there is a section in here that ``requires any transfer of funds or personnel not exceed applicable ceilings established in law for such transfers.'' So any succeeding Congress reserves the right to establish such limits in law, and they will not be altered by the Collins-Lieberman proposal. The second thing to say is the authority we give the national intelligence director--that we believe so strongly that director needs--is not without control. No one is going to confuse this director with a god, even a god of intelligence. He will be a director of intelligence but he will be limited. For instance, transfers of personnel and budget will be subject to the approval of the Office of Management and Budget. So ultimately what does that mean? It means the Commander in Chief has to approve. If there is a fear that this national intelligence director may do some things that, let's say, the Secretary of Defense doesn't like, the Secretary of Defense can go right to the President and say I don't like this and please get the OMB director not to approve these transfers. The final responsibility for the decision goes to where it should be ultimately in our system, which is to the President. We also require consultation with department heads before transfers of budget or money or personnel are made. We require that the transfers only be made for what we call a higher priority intelligence activity. We don't expect this to be done wantonly. We are not allowing it to be done wantonly, to override the appropriations of Congress. We are saying we want that director, though, to have the ability, if there is a crisis, to move money like a general moving troops to the point where the Army is being attacked. As I said earlier, the transfers have to occur within applicable ceilings established by law. So I say this, finally, to my dear friend and respected colleague from West Virginia. There is an urgency here, which is the urgency of the terrorist threat that we face. The 9/11 Commission has been clear about this. They believe we are in a situation where still, today, no one is in charge of our intelligence community. We had testimony before our committee in terms of Osama bin Laden, that evil person who concocted and directed, or conceived and directed the attack against America on 9/11/01, killing almost 3,000 innocent civilians. Obviously, he is the No. 1 target for us today. In the hunt for Osama bin Laden, there is no one in charge. We have two or three agencies of our Government going at this, but there is no one in charge. The national intelligence director will put somebody in charge. That is the urgency, that we remain at war and we are not organized as well as we should be. The urgency is the urgency that a general in combat would feel is clear if the enemy is taking advantage of a particular vulnerability in his forces. He would move quickly to shore up that vulnerability. That is what we are doing as well. In closing, families of the victims of September 11 have formed a group to advocate, in some ways, in the memory of their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and children who were lost on September 11, to make sure we do what they think we ought to do to protect other families from suffering. They sent a letter to Members of Congress a week or two ago in which they said: Sufficient information necessary to make a decision as to a new, improved structure for the Nation's intelligence community is currently available to all Members of Congress. Opinions may differ as to how improvements are best accomplished, but those differences can be addressed within the framework of the legislation being proposed. There is no excuse for deferring decisionmaking, given the wealth of information available. Again, that is from families of the victims of September 11. I promised that would be the last word, but this will be the last word. I say to the Senator from West Virginia that the very introduction of this amendment and the discussion it engenders today between yourself, Senator Collins, and me, and hopefully other Members listening and involved is part of the process, similar to what we went through in our Committee. I think a lot of Members came to the Committee hearings and deliberations, and we went on for two days of markup. We had almost 50 amendments. We conducted a very open discussion. We listened and, in some cases, we altered language in the mark we laid down because we thought Members made good points. In other cases, we said it hurts the purpose of what is required. In the end, because everybody felt we worked together and learned a lot, we were very pleased to say the bill was reported out unanimously. I must say that one of the members, when the roll was called, gave an answer that I had never heard before. Instead of saying yea or nay, he said ``barely yea.'' We got him just over the threshold. My hope is that as a result of the discussion on this amendment, we get to a point at the end of the day, or next week, that we can have a similarly strong vote that will reflect a confidence that we have all together learned, that we have protected our values, constitutionally speaking, and our security, and done the best we could and will adopt this with a real sense of confidence. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank my friend from Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee whom I so respect and for whom I have such a feeling of personal affection. I probably should not say this for the record, Senator Warner, but my wife probably wouldn't be happy to hear that I was opposing you. She has all too much regard for your judgment and opinions. But nonetheless, I go forward. Let me put this amendment in context. In response to the 9/11 Commission Report, Senator Frist and Senator Daschle sent it to our Governmental Affairs Committee to consider and then recommend, on the basis of that report, action to the Senate--which we have done. Senator Collins and I and the members of the committee essentially built a structure, a national intelligence director, a leader for our intelligence community where there is none now--what I called a quarterback for our intelligence team--where there is no quarterback, a general for our intelligence service. There have been two amendments put forward, in now this fifth day of debate on the bill, that went at the architecture of the structure we have recommended. One was by Senator Specter, which would have dramatically altered, gone well beyond, what we had. Senator Warner knows, because he was good enough to come and speak against the amendment; it would have had the new NID in line control of all of these intelligence agencies, including those that are housed and will continue to be housed in the Defense Department. That was overwhelmingly rejected by the Senate. Yesterday, there was a different kind of assault on the structure we are proposing from our committee in the amendment offered by the Senator from South Carolina which I believe and represent would have created in name a national intelligence coordinator but given that person no authority, no power. It would have been the status quo because it would have looked as if we had done something, but we would not have done anything. That amendment was overwhelmingly defeated. I am grateful for both of those votes. The amendment which the Senator from Virginia proposes, as in some sense the amendment the Senator from West Virginia proposed earlier today, does not knock off the structure we have proposed but alters it in ways that I fear--certainly cumulatively--would weaken the structure and not allow the national intelligence director to play the role the 9/11 Commission and our committee wants it to play. Is it a big difference? No. But one element of strengthening this position of national intelligence director is to make the influence of the director over our national intelligence agencies--the National Security Agency, which deals with signal intelligence and communications that are heard in the interest of our national security, the National Reconnaissance Organization, which puts satellites up in the air, and the National Geospatial Agency, which has all of these remarkable capacities technologically to see ground imagery and help our military and other intelligence services to do what they have to do to protect us. Here is the point: Those are national assets. Of course, they are used every day by the military, by the Department of Defense. The DOD is a very important customer, maybe the most active customer, but not the only customer of these assets--of signal intelligence, image intelligence, and human intelligence. The CIA, as Senator Collins indicated, depends on these satellites and the other systems for important intelligence. So does the State Department. So does now the Department of Homeland Security, even the FBI. We are trying to say that these national assets ought to report to the national intelligence director, and part of that is to give the director the opportunity to start the process for nominating the heads of these agencies. That is a change. Now that is done. As Senator Collins indicated, with the Secretary of Defense, we want to make a slight change. The Secretary of Defense has the right to concur or oppose. In most cases this will be worked out between the national intelligence director and the Secretary of Defense. Lord knows, they and their deputies are working out 100 decisions every day right now. But if it is not worked out, the dissent will go to the President, and ultimately the President will decide. It is a only a difference. The Secretary of Defense will begin the process of who is going to head the national agency or the NID. Ultimately, the President will decide. Why is that different under our bill for these three agencies as opposed to the head of a counterterrorism division in the FBI, or that information analysis, intelligence, and for infrastructure protection division of Homeland Security? Because these three are uniquely national assets. The NSA, NRO, and NGA serve all of the community and they ought to be under the director of the community, and he or she ought to have the first say in who fills that position. That is why this is an important part of our structure, and why I respectfully oppose the amendment, because it would weaken the structure by pulling out a couple of the boards.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I certainly will.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Through the Chair, the Senator from Virginia is absolutely right. I do recall it.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I may briefly respond to the Senator from Virginia, the case cited of the INR, the intelligence division at the State Department, is an interesting one. They came to a different opinion than some other constituent agencies of the American intelligence community with regard to, for instance, prewar WMD in Iraq. But that was a matter of analysis primarily, not collection. They looked at the data. Incidentally, some of the data they looked at were data they got from these three agencies. These are the three largest collection agencies and they are unique in that they serve the whole community. There is certainly no intention to diminish the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense has a very powerful position and Senator Collins and I want to have the Secretary remain that powerful. We had very interesting testimony before our committee by a witness who said-- he had been in the Department of Defense and stepped out to work with a think tank where he watches all of this--over the years when there were conflicts or disagreements between the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense always wins because the Secretary of Defense has so much muscle. And that is the reality. We are not trying to undercut the authority of the Secretary of Defense, and we are certainly not trying to alter the chain of command, but we are trying to give a little more authority to the national intelligence director so that director can really be in charge. One small piece of that is saying, Mr. Intelligence Director, you can, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, make the suggestion for who ought to head these three agencies which, unlike any other intelligence agency within our Government, serve the entire community. The Secretary of Defense, as I said before, is an important customer of what these three agencies produce--``user'' may be a better term than customer. It was of great interest when General Hayden, head of the NSA, said he spends more time on the phone with the Director of the CIA than with the Secretary of Defense. We want to reflect that in this small movement of authority.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I may speak on the amendment briefly, I thank the Senators from Rhode Island and Maryland for coming forward with the amendment. It certainly speaks directly to a critical national homeland security need. I want to take a little time to look at it and see how it fits into the overall picture with regard to the bill. I know this was reported out unanimously from the relevant committee. It has been held up perhaps only by one Senator as a result of an objection. I don't want to have the underlying bill, which is so urgently needed, get caught in that kind of situation. But I would like to work with the sponsors of the amendment and perhaps with whoever is objecting to see if we can't find a way to put these together. This speaks to a real national need. It is consistent with other amendments that have been adopted on the underlying bill or were part of the bill initially and, of course, consistent with vulnerabilities that the 9/11 Commission spoke to. I thank the sponsors and I look forward to working with them to see if we can work it out. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I do want to indicate that we have several other Senators who told us they would be coming over to the floor today to offer amendments: Senator Levin, Senator Roberts, Senator Kyl, and Senator Stevens. I urge them to come over as soon as is possible. We are open for business, and there is time available. The sooner the debates occur, the sooner we will be able to set these matters for votes on Monday. Amendment No. 3807

Mr. LIEBERMAN. In the meantime, Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to say a word about amendment No. 3807 which Senator McCain and I offered yesterday. This is another of the elements of the 9/11 Commission report that was part of legislation Senator McCain and I introduced the day after Labor Day as a way to guarantee that all elements of the 9/11 report would be before the Senate. This one has to do with effective screening to keep terrorists out of America and away from vital infrastructure in America. It is a comment on the age in which we live, something we have taken for granted in America but has been a great asset of ours, and that is the size of our country, the size of our borders, and the welcome mat we generally have put out for people visiting our country. That openness has been exploited--it certainly was prior to the attacks of September 11--exploited by those who, as someone else has said, hate us more than they love their own lives. They come in here and are prepared to blow themselves up to kill Americans. That demands that we not try to put a wall around America--we can never do that--but that we be aggressive and smart about raising our guard and requiring some standards of personal identification from people coming into America, something we have not required before. We can do that without compromising unduly, unnecessarily, the openness of our country and the welcome we put out to both those who want to emigrate here and those who just plain want to visit. The amendment Senator McCain and I offered has several parts to it. One is to simply help us obtain better information about the way in which terrorists move around, the way in which they intend to exploit our transportation systems, our existing laws, to do damage to us and our people. We want to better screen for terrorists in foreign countries long before they can reach our borders. We want to better train border personnel. We want to use the most sophisticated computer imaging equipment to detect fraudulent travel documents. We want to better screen at the borders and at points of access, as I say, to critical infrastructure, transportation particularly, and we want to do more to protect against identity fraud and identity theft because so often these terrorists will assume new identities as a way to gain access to the country and access to places where they can inflict damage on us. What it means to defend America has changed. In a different age, the age of serious conflict, it meant having the strongest military we could, having the most sophisticated weapons we could, to deter enemy attack, to be prepared to go to the battlefield, to deploy our forces to meet the enemy and defeat the enemy. Today, it involves homeland security in a way it never has before in our history, and this amendment would enable us to raise our homeland security in the best way possible. In its analysis of the events leading up to September 11, 2001, the 9/11 Commission concluded that the terrorists are as reliant on travel documents as they ultimately are on weapons. To succeed, they have to travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets, look at targets, and gain access to sites they want to attack. They rely on networks of people to facilitate their travel, people they place within this country. Commonly, their travel documents have been tampered with. The 9/11 Commission found that as many as 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers could have been intercepted at the borders. Two of them actually entered the United States even though they were known as terrorists by at least one agency in the intelligence community of the United States. They were on a terrorist watch list. They had been heard at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, kind of a world conference of terrorists, al-Qaida largely, where we now believe the attacks of 9/11 were planned. Two of them met that standard. The point is we have to address the multiple opportunities to identify and stop the terrorists at every point along their travel routes long before they reach our entry points, at our border crossings. Once inside the country, we have to find ways to detect them. The first thing this amendment does is seek to improve our intelligence about how terrorists travel. Before 9/11 and even today, there is no agency within the Federal Government that has the responsibility to consider this question. The Department of Homeland Security, therefore, would be directed by the amendment to work with the appropriate intelligence and law enforcement agencies in a coordinated effort to detect methods and patterns of travel, such as the use of specific routes. They would look for those who assist terrorists, be they human smugglers or corrupt government officials. There is information--and I can describe it because it was mentioned in a newspaper; I saw it in the Washington Times earlier this week-- about terrorist elements, al-Qaida working with certain gangs, drug groups, who customarily smuggle people across our southern border to work with them to smuggle in terrorists. We cannot sit back and let that happen. This amendment would also expand screening for terrorists long before they reach our borders. Federal agencies would be required to develop a plan for working with foreign countries to share information on terrorists and increase inspection at foreign airports, not just U.S. airports. The amendment would increase investment in new technologies that can detect false travel documents or those with certain indicators that are consistent with terrorist use based on patterns of what we know now, and would require both the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to provide training about terrorist travel to our front-line border officials so they may better spot forged passports or other subtle clues that warrant further scrutiny. The best available technology should also be provided to our embassies and consulates to detect doctored passports or other forms of false identification before the applicant is issued a visa, set up a kind of technological wall of identification, most specifically at visa-granting points around the world for visas to come to the United States. To improve screening at our borders, the 9/11 Commission recognized the need for a robust entry and exit system based on the use of biometric information. A system of this sort has been under development for over a year now, but it needs to be improved and accelerated. Our amendment requires the Department of Homeland Security to do just that. The 9/11 Commission also recommended that we close the gaping hole in our border security created by policies allowing easy passage into the United States from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean; logical enough in years past, the natural neighborly tendency of the United States of America and Americans generally, but unfortunately it is a policy of openness that has been exploited and continues to be exploited by the terrorists. Our lenient border policies with our neighbors to the north and south today constitute a vulnerability. Travelers may now cross these borders with no other proof of U.S. citizenship than a verbal statement. Individuals claiming to be Canadians enter our country from Canada without showing a passport. The policies are evidence of our good relations with our neighbors, but in the age of terrorism, that friendship must allow for better security for the benefit of both. Our amendment would require biometric passports, or an identification document just as secure, for everyone crossing into the United States, even U.S. citizens and our closest neighbors. As we make our borders more secure, we must not forsake the principles of openness and freedom that define us as a nation. This amendment therefore requires that the Department of Homeland Security consolidate and improve a registered travel program that allows previously screened and trusted travelers to go quickly across our borders so that officials may focus on those who might do us harm. Finally, this amendment improves the way we issue key identification documents, such as driver's licenses, birth certificates, or personal identification cards that may be required before boarding a commercial airliner or requested by a law enforcement officer who has grounds to be suspicious. It would require minimum security standards for these documents and directs the Federal Government to work with the States to establish minimum standards for both the security features embedded in these documents and for the way in which the documents are issued. By the way, a similar program is already in effect for issuing commercial driver's licenses. In this regard, I want to thank my cosponsor on this amendment, Senator McCain, and the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, for their long work together in the interest of establishing not a national identity card but minimum uniform standards for personal identification documents in the United States of America. We have no intention of usurping the State's role here, their capacity to design their own identification documents. The amendment specifies that the States retain the full authority to decide who qualifies, for example, for a driver's license. We would, in addition, provide grants to the States to help them implement these new standards. For several decades, study after study has told us how easy it is to obtain a false identity in this country. As recently as 2002, GAO investigators used fraudulent identification made by commercially available computer software to obtain driver's licenses in several States. Of course, the driver's license is an entry card to a personal identification and clearance throughout the system. We have known about this problem for decades, but after September 11 we can't wait any longer--and we are still waiting, since September 11, to do anything about it. This bill will push us forward. The 9/11 Commission described a variety of loopholes and flaws and inadequacies in our current border security personal identity system. We must close and repair those; close those loopholes, repair those flaws, and put to an end, as best we can, to the terrorists' ability to continually reinvent themselves and escape detection. We are up to this. We are technologically up to this. The question is whether we have the will and the common sense to do so. This amendment would help our border and law enforcement officials accomplish exactly that. For the sake of the safety of all Americans, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. I note with gratitude the presence on the floor of Senator Levin. I yield the floor to him at this time for the purpose of offering an amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Michigan, the distinguished member of our Governmental Affairs Committee, who has played a characteristically active, thoughtful, and constructive part in the markup of and consideration of the committee through the hearings, drafting, and markup of the bill last week, and he continues to with this amendment, an amendment somewhat like the one which the committee didn't agree on. We have worked together. This whole bill has had so many moments where I felt we were legislating, we were reasoning together and coming to agreements that will make the system we want established better. This is one of them. It is totally consistent with the intention Senator Collins and I have had in putting the bill together with the intention, in my opinion, of the September 11 Commission, which is to put somebody in charge of the intelligence community where there is not someone in charge now; to not simply encourage but to the best of their ability mandate collaboration among the component agencies of the intelligence community and make sure that one result of collaboration is not so-called group-think; that there is independent, competitive analysis going on. The amendment of the Senator from Michigan, which is focused, does exactly that. It adds language to make clear that the national intelligence director shall establish collection and analysis requirements for the intelligence community based on input from consumers of that national intelligence which reflect their estimate of their need and requirements. That is plain common sense. The director would also establish collection analysis requirements based on the needs of intelligence consumers in order to produce timely and relevant products, which is what this is all about. Senator Levin's amendment also makes clear the director has the responsibility in setting analysis priorities to ensure that the elements of the intelligence community are able to conduct, as he has said, ``independent analyses so as to achieve to the maximum extent practicable competitive analysis.'' That, too, is not only sensible, but it is in the interest of our national security. I thank the Senator from Michigan. I certainly support the amendment. I believe it has been cleared on both sides. But the Senator from Maine is not able to be on the floor right now. As soon as she can, I guess she will want to speak on this and we should adopt this by consent. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Maine is on her way to the floor to speak about the amendment. I wonder if we might go into a quorum call for a moment until she does. I note the presence of the very distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He will go next after we agree to this amendment. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I cannot thank the Senator from Kansas enough, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, for what he has said. It means everything to me and, I know, to Senator Collins. We were asked to take on this assignment in the Governmental Affairs Committee because we are the committee of jurisdiction over governmental reorganization. The Intelligence Committee clearly has the experience and expertise in matters of intelligence. Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller have contributed to the product we have turned out. But it is critically important to the success of what we have started here that our committee be working together with Senator Roberts and his committee. I appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness that went into the many amendments that the Senator from Kansas is offering. Our staffs are looking them over. As Senator Collins said, I hope we can accept a number of them. They share the goals that we have together, and they will strengthen the bill. Then I look forward to Senator Roberts being on the conference committee and helping us to come up with a good result when we meet our friends from the House. Most of all, I thank him, my friend. Together we are going to get something good done, not just for the intelligence community but for the reason for which our intelligence agencies exist, and that is for our national security. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I join Senator Collins in thanking Senator Kyl and Senator Chambliss for offering the amendments. I thank Senator Kyl particularly for the spirit in which he offered--and some of the amendments we will be able to reach agreement on--the last amendment--the so-called tools for terrorists?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Tools to fight terrorism, as I would call it. As you said, parts of it are very controversial. As an individual Senator, probably a lot of it I would support, but I particularly appreciate the Senator's conclusion here because neither the Senator from Arizona nor I want to come into a situation where we are getting this bill's fate swept up in controversial amendments. I look forward to working with the Senator and members of both caucuses to pick out the parts that there is general agreement on, and I believe there will be a good number of those, and make the bill stronger and then get it moving to adoption. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank Senator from Alaska. I thank him for the promise he has made and for the suggestions he has offered. There are some matters on which we have big disagreements. There are others on which we clearly do not. We have made some suggestions today that we can work out over the weekend which will improve the bill. Most of all, I want the Senator from Alaska to know that we always listen to him whether he shouts or not.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Have a good weekend.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Chair, and the Senator from Alabama for introducing these amendments. I understand their concerns very well. They have raised some reasonable and direct questions. I want to attempt at this moment to try to reassure them, which is to say there is nothing in this underlying bill intended to, or that I can see, restrict the capacity or the mobility of people working in our intelligence community to operate to protect us. The board that is created is intended to, as I see it, do a broad review of policies before policies are ordered or issued, to consult with the policymakers, and afterward to do a review. I don't think there is any basis for feeling that if somebody felt their liberties were violated by a particular action of a particular agency or intelligence person or officer, they could appeal to this board. So the intent is not to second-guess or create a place where there can be second-guessing of individual cases, individual decisions. Therefore, to avoid what the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Arizona, I think quite understandably, worry about, a climate of risk aversion--you don't want that to happen--you want these people to be aggressive, fearless, and not risk averse. As a matter of fact, all of the discussion we have had in another context about the bill, which is about encouraging competitive analyses and the so-called red team concepts--and we set up an audit review section to do quality control--it is all about making sure people don't get in a group-think or that they get risk averse, but that they be bold and opinionated and they come up with the best result for us. The other thing I want to say about the privacy and civil liberties offices is that, as Senator Collins said, we took this model--and I urge us to think about this--from the Department of Homeland Security, which has both privacy and civil liberties advisers in it. I will give you a couple of quotes as to early reports. Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security, testified at the Judiciary Committee last month talking about the agency's existing privacy officer. He said: Here in DHS, we can show the effectiveness of a strong privacy officer at the agency level and the success that is achievable only through direct integration of privacy protections in operational work. Privacy is an issue that stretches across the entire government and as we continue to look at government-wide approaches to privacy, it is also important to see how productive agency-level privacy protections are. That sounds to me like a good, healthy dialog has been created in which privacy is being considered but not standing in the way of that Department protecting our security. I will also quote from Secretary Ridge, who noted the important role of the same office in providing what he called ``proactive legal and policy advice to senior leadership in the Department and its components.'' He cited the office's success in working with the Border and Transportation Security Directorate ``to craft positive policy changes in response to the issues raised by the DOJ Inspector General's report on the 9/11 immigration detainees,'' and in ``develop[ing] policies to establish DHS as a model employer for people with disabilities . . . ''--it goes on about helping to implement President Bush's recent Executive order. I have great respect for my colleagues and friends who introduced this amendment. I understand their concern and I hope in some small way through what I have said I can alleviate the concerns they have. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Joseph Lieberman

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